February 17, 2009

There are some who might take issue with Devra Lerner’s recent “As I See It” column on Israel and Gaza (2/11, Opinion, “Hamas’ actions show lack of care for Palestinian people”). But it’s difficult to find fault with her final statement: “Ultimately, peace will come when Hamas loves its people more than it hates Israel.”

Why did Israel vacate the Gaza strip yet maintain a military blockade around it? Can this really be called autonomy for its inhabitants?

Why does Israel insist that Hamas act as a responsible governing body yet refuse to officially recognize it, branding it a terrorist organization with no diplomatic recourse?

Why would Israel launch a full-scale military assault on one of the most densely populated pockets of humanity on Earth, yet accuse its defenders of using its citizens as “human shields?” Where else would you have them fight?

Religious righteousness has continued to fuel the fighting. Only after unfounded beliefs are abandoned will there be peace in the region. It is time to abandon childish things. We are all part of one tribe — the human one, no god required.

My family lives in Jerusalem, and in many times during the past 30 years when I have been away, the phone has been the only method of communication. Many times during war and crisis, we don’t even have that available.

I also thank you for reminding us all that the Gaza crisis and war has human casualties. The people who are suffering and dying in the thousands all over Gaza are not shadows or ghosts. They are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, children and grandparents, all human, all dying. They are people who are lost in the news analysis of who is right and who is wrong.

We pray for the end of this new war and pray that we have leadership in the United States that will see the wisdom of ending this 60-year-old, never-ending war.

January 13, 2009

Even after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Hamas continued unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli cities. Playgrounds in Israel have bomb shelters. Why have there been no reports over the years on the shattered lives of Israelis?

Hamas is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating Israel and disrupting peace efforts. Using civilians as human shields, Hamas deliberately launches rockets from civilian neighborhoods, places weapons in and near the homes of its own people, and hides in schools, hospitals and mosques. Militants wear civilian clothes and are counted among civilian dead. Hamas knows that even though Israel attacks military targets with precision, there will be civilian casualties and the world will blame Israel. No other country in the world is being asked to endure attacks on an almost daily basis without response.

In democratic elections after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, a majority of Palestinians elected Hamas. Terrorism has its consequences.

Anita ColmanMission

For Palestinians it is a struggle for survival. For Israelis it is an undertaking to break Hamas’ back. But the battle in Gaza is of no less significance to the U.S. What is at stake is America’s ability to reclaim its sovereignty in making foreign policy decisions based on its values and self-interests, including mending its strained relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds.

While the Bush administration lacked the will to alter the dynamics that produced the current conflict, the upcoming administration is determined to get engaged. Barack Obama kept his cards close to his chest while the onslaught in Gaza went on. If he delivers a fair resolution to the crisis, Arabs and Muslims will pardon his cautious posture while hundreds lost their lives under Israeli fire. If, on the other hand, he maintains the “Israel is our strongest ally” policy, then all bets are off.

Krauthammer claims Israel sent messages to Gazans on their cell phones while forgetting that electricity had been cut off for days. Wonder how they charged those phones? Then what about the fact that no journalists had been allowed in for days prior to the invasion? Looks as if the Palestinians were sitting ducks in a shooting gallery.

As far as I’m concerned, neither Hamas nor Israel can claim any moral high ground in this killing field., Krauthammer’s lavish praise is just more propaganda in a never-ending war of misinformation and senseless death.

Jess HallLenexa

If any political entity is sworn to a nation’s extermination, what are the options for that nation?

These words from the Hamas Charter reveal why the rocket barrage will never stop: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it … There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

What would the U.S., Jordan, Venezuela, Egypt, Syria or Iran do if they had to face this? Keep living in bomb shelters?

Martin KaynanOlathe

Israel vs. Hamas. Or should I say brother vs. brother? You say “What? Are you crazy?” Maybe so, but according to Christian, Jewish and Islamic religious traditions, both of these groups came from the same father but different mothers. For those of us whose religious traditions are different, this is how this conflict could be viewed.

I find it interesting that no one from the abovementioned religious traditions seems to bring this point up. Why? Maybe they never viewed it that way before. Or maybe they realize it but won’t bring it up because it blows up in their faces.

So it all boils down to a sibling rivalry — trying to get the parents’ attention. The rest of us in the neighborhood suffer because of it.

January 08, 2009

Both Hamas and Israel are making attacks on civilians that appear illegal under the Geneva Conventions. However it is important to weigh facts and justifications with careful impartiality. Instead, The Star’s editorial (1/3, Opinion) is partisan and careless.

The Gaza Strip crams 1.4 million people into 139 square miles, for a density of 10,000 people per square mile. That is three times as dense as Los Angeles and denser than any major city in the developed world. Consequently any military installations in Gaza are close to civilian populations as a matter of necessity. When The Star describes Hamas military emplacements as “cynical,” it is The Star that is being cynical.

As The Star says, Hamas was wrong to send untargeted missiles into Israel. The Star fails to note that the blockade constitutes a prior state of war that would justify attacks targeted on the Israeli military.

David BurressLawrence

After all these years, Hamas has come up with a rule of war by which they can abide. Anyone who retaliates against Hamas must not use superior force.

Hamas has always had its own set of war rules: no uniforms for warriors (burqas covering bombs have always worked), battle stations in the middle of the civilian population, ignoring the flags of medics and relief workers, and complete disregard for the Geneva Conventions. Is anyone surprised that they now proclaim that proportional warfare must be honored by all who fight them?

In reality, wars are won with superior force. Like the song lyrics say, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.”

B.J. TaylorOverland Park

The Arabs and the Jews have been fighting for eons.

Let’s face it: It’s a religious war that no one will placate until each side will get rid of its god.

January 07, 2009

Israel has shown unbelievable restraint for far too long. I’m delighted to see them finally going into Gaza to stop the horrors of those determined to wipe out an entire “race” of people. Hitler had the same goal. They deserve the same end that Hitler had. Genocide in any of its ugly forms is still genocide.

I hope the new regime will still support our old democratic friends in Israel. Israel is the only democratic form of government in that part of the world.

Israel should reclaim Gaza in its entirety. War is hell. So who started this?

Bob PattersonLee’s Summit

When I was in grammar school, there were a couple of bullies who hit us smaller kids. I enlisted the biggest boy in the class to “take up” for me. Recess became pleasant.

The same thing is happening in Israel. Hamas fires indiscriminate rockets at Israel. Israel retaliates with overwhelming force, in accordance with the principle of mass.

War is when one entity tries to force another entity to submit. To understand how Israel responded, consult Clint Eastwood or John Wayne.

January 06, 2009

The Star’s editorial board, predictably, has come down in favor of Israel’s bloody assault on starving Gazans, half of them children (1/3, Opinion, “Many images of war are unfair to Israel”). It has ignored the deprivation of Palestinians and the history of their loss of land — which is similar to what happened to Native Americans. First, covet their land; next, demonize them using the ever-compliant media; then steal from them with impunity and when they object, sometimes violently, be sure to punish them, all of them, in complete disregard for international law and the now-shredded Geneva Conventions.

This time, however, many Americans are beginning to see that Israel has long been the aggressor. According to a recent poll, 55 percent of Democratic voters oppose what Israel is doing. Will that somehow marshal the conscience of Congressman Emanuel Cleaver or Congressman Dennis Moore, or will they, like The Star, support the oppressor? Our own national security depends on the answer.

Andrea WhitmoreFairway

For those who say that Israel’s response to the Hamas rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip during the past seven years has been “disproportionate,” consider the following points:

The United States’ response to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor was not simply to bomb a similar number of Japanese warships. No, we went to all-out war against Japan.

The United States’ response to the 9/11 al-Qaida terror attacks was not simply to bomb a similar number of Taliban buildings. No, we went to all-out war against the Taliban.

As a “proportionate” response, would you recommend that Israel simply lob a similar number of rockets and mortars indiscriminately into the Gaza Strip?

The way to end this conflict is simply for Hamas to stop shooting rockets into Israel.

David RaffelParkville

I’m astounded by the vitriol of letter writers (1/2) toward the Israeli attacks on Gaza. More than 5,000 rockets have been fired at Israel by Hamas. Should they turn the other cheek for another 5,000? Would Americans be so tolerant if even one bomb was sent over from a neighboring country?

Why are these Israeli attacks deemed to be an overreaction when a couple of hundred civilians are killed, but it is not even discussed after several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians are killed in a war that was started without them firing one shot, let alone dropping one bomb? Doesn’t anyone see the lunacy of this hypocrisy?

Linda EspositoLeawood

The disproportionate bloody incursion into Gaza confirms the loss of morality by Israel and its supporters.

Feeble rockets from Gaza were an attempt at resistance to decades of humanitarian abuse. Edward Said put it best back in 2002: “Every Palestinian has become a prisoner.... Gaza is a human nightmare … Hope has been eliminated from the Palestinian vocabulary so that only raw defiance remains.” And so those Israeli outposts and the enduring military occupation of Palestine, coupled with the de facto prison called Gaza, all provided the tinder for the conflagration playing out today in Gaza.

Now fearsome and thunderous F-16 raids and computer-guided missiles overwhelm innocent women and children in Gaza. Any peaceful resolution has thus been pushed way, way into the future, and the American taxpayer once again must pay dearly for yet another reckless military sortie with armaments purchased by our tax dollars while further damaging our prestige.

Second, Palestinian rockets are shot at civilian targets. So where is the outrage?

Third, it is well established that if Hamas never fired another rocket, shot another bullet or sponsored another suicide bomber, there would be no killing at all by either side.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, the Palestinian refugee problem was totally the result of deliberate Arab policy back in the late ’40s, when Arab nations were promising to drive out the Jews and return the land to the Palestinians. These nations refused to absorb those who left Israel. They purposely created a refugee problem.

This situation is complex. Both sides have legitimate grievances. Attacking only one side’s policies will not further the peace process.

K.A. NewmanPrairie Village

Israel gave Gaza back five years ago, and in return has received five years of incessant rocket attacks from this very same land. The U.N. and anti-Israeli groups were silent during these outrageous, unprovoked attacks by Hamas. The vast majority of those killed by this overdue response by Israel are Hamas terrorists, unfortunately causing some civilian casualties by hiding among the populace.

Clearly, the responsibility for harm to Palestinian civilians is the fault of Hamas and its leaders. The only purpose of Hamas’ existence is to destroy Israel. Israel is forced to do what it must do to protect its citizens and to survive. No other nation on Earth would take such attacks without prompt retaliation. Israel has shown remarkable restraint in not answering sooner.

Thousands of Jewish settlers were forcibly removed by Israeli troops from their homes and farms after living and working the Gaza land for more than 50 years. Why is it that a million Arabs live in comparative peace in Israel, but a Jew living in Gaza is in danger of being lynched?